what did you make?I made a simple mod, the first mod in this series by TechnoVision. Basically, just adding an object into the game. It’s untextured and doesn’t do anything. You can’t place it, you can only drop it, pick it up, and spawn it through the Creative inventory, but it’s a new item nonetheless.
what did you hope to learn?Through this process, I wanted to do two things: (1) set up my workspace and (2) put something in the game that wasn’t there before. Since I’ve never made a mod, I was really starting on the ground floor. I started modding in Eclipse first but it became too cumbersome and the tutorial uses InteliJ so I also had to set that up.
how did you get your info?I found TechnoVision pretty quickly on my search for mods. I actually had made another kind of mod following one of his tutorials (a server-side mod), until I realized I’d have to make the mod client-side to change the stars. I decided I’d follow through with the first few tutorial videos so I could learn the very basics of modding, even though it has little to do with what I’ll ultimately have to do.
what did you ultimately learn? how has that impacted your plans?I learned that Forge mods / client-side mods are significantly different than server-side mods. While server-side mods are like little files you put in to your server folder, a client-side mod is literally a rebuild of the client-side program. They’re significantly larger and override methods and functions in the program to get what they want done. I’ve also learned that the learning curve for mods is also significant: there’s a clear reason I haven’t modded before. It’s difficult to get used to. Even though I lean more towards the coding side of IMM, even modding Minecraft will be a significant challenge.
Another challenge I’m facing is doing two thesis projects at once (English & IMM). My workflow is in sprints– I’ll work on just one project for a few days or weeks at a time, without working on anything else. Only when I’ve reached a frustrating or good place to stop will I work on my next project. So it’s been a challenge balancing both projects at the same time, since I want to work on both of them, but they’re so different they take a lot more time than I expected. I think most of my work that I’d do this semester will get done during finals week / winter break. Like I’ve said in previous posts, I’ll definitely have to immerse myself in modding and learning how Java works in relation to Minecraft. It will definitely take more than 3 prototypes.
Editor’s Note: Ault brought up that one of the first computer games, Spacewar!, was modded: “TMRC member Peter Samson wrote a program based on real star charts that scrolled slowly through the night sky, including every star in a band between 22.5° N and 22.5° S down to the fifth magnitude, displayed at their relative brightness. The program was called “Expensive Planetarium”—referring to the high price of the PDP-1 computer compared to an analog planetarium, as part of the series of “expensive” programs….”
There seems to be a history of being mindful of the stars!